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KiCad project manager (kicad or kicad.exe) is a tool which can easily run the other tools (schematic and board editors, Gerber viewer and utility tools) when creating a design.
Running the other tools from KiCad manager has some advantages:
cross probing between schematic editor and board editor.
synchronization of the design between the schematic editor and board editor (without creating netlist files)
KiCad currently only supports having one project open at a time. When running the schematic and board editors from the KiCad project manager, you can only edit the schematics and board associated with the open project. When these tools are run in stand alone mode, you can open any file in any project, but cross probing between tools can give strange results.
Project manager window
The KiCad project manager window is composed of a tree view on the left showing the files associated with the open project, and a launcher on the right containing shortcuts to the various editors and tools.
Project tree view
The tree view shows a list of files inside the project folder. Double-clicking on a file in the tree view will open it in the associated editor. Right-clicking on a file will open a context menu with some file manipulation commands.
| Only files that KiCad understands how to open are displayed in the project tree view. |
Side toolbar
The toolbar on the left side of the window provides shortcuts for common project operations:
| Create a new project. |
| Open an existing project. |
| Create a zip archive of the whole project. This includes schematic files, libraries, PCB, etc. |
| Extract a project zip archive into a directory. Files in the destination directory will be overwritten. |
| Refresh the tree view, to detect changes made on the filesystem. |
| Open the project working directory in a file explorer. |
Creating a new project
Most KiCad designs start with the creation of a project. There are two ways to create a project from the KiCad project manager: you may create an empty project, or create a project based on an existing template. This section will cover the creation of a new, empty project. Creating projects from templates is covered in the Project Templates section.
To create a new project, use the New Project… command in the File menu, click the New Project button in the top toolbar, or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+N by default).
You will be prompted for a name to give your project. By default, a directory will be created for your project with the same name. For example, if you enter the name MyProject, KiCad will create the directory MyProject and the project file MyProject/MyProject.kicad_pro inside it.
If you already have a directory to store your project files in, you can uncheck the Create a new directory for the project checkbox in the New Project dialog.
| It is strongly recommended that you store each KiCad project inside its own directory. |
Once you select the name of your project, KiCad will create the following files inside the project directory:
example.kicad_pro | KiCad project file. |
example.kicad_sch | Main schematic file. |
example.kicad_pcb | Printed circuit board file. |
Importing a project from another EDA tool
KiCad is able to import files created by some other software packages. Currently the following types of project are supported:
.sch, .brd | Eagle 6.x or newer (XML format) |
.csa, .cpa | CADSTAR archive format |
To import a project from one of these tools, choose the appropriate option from the Import Non-KiCad Project submenu of the File menu.
You will be prompted to select either a schematic or a board file in the import file browser dialog. The imported schematic and board files should have the same base file name (e.g. project.sch and project.brd). Once the requested files are selected, you will be asked to select a directory to store the resulting KiCad project.
